Reach for the Stars
by Kris Yamaki
Summary: A 21st Century girl is taken onto the Enterprise after she learns of the crew's existence. Can she learn to cope with the changes, or will she be swept away in the future she never knew existed...?
1. Abduction

Reach for the Stars  
  
Chapter one -- Abducted  
~*~  
  
Li rolled over under her bedcovers, possibly for the twentieth time in five minutes, trying to get settled. She sighed. Something didn't feel right... physically everything was fine, but something in the back of her mind wouldn't let her be. It was far beyond her understanding as to why, but then again, it probably didn't need an explanation for now.  
  
Sighing again, the fourteen-year-old girl decided a walk would do her some good. She slowly removed the covers, slid onto the carpeted floor of her room and padded over to her dresser. After a bizarre episode with a stuck drawer, she managed to extract a pair of jeans and a shirt, then stumbled into her bathroom to change.  
  
It was some time before Li had made her way out into the hall, carrying her tennis shoes in one hand and sneaking through the house in her socked feet. She finally reached the back door without disturbing her parents, much to her relief, and put on her shoes before exiting out the door.  
  
The cool night air felt refreshing to Li, since had always enjoyed the Fall months. She took in a deep breath, tasting the air as it rushed in and out of her lungs. It had seemed like it had been forever since she'd felt a cool autumn breeze...summer was always too long for her. She allowed her mind to wander as she ambled around her backyard, close to the edge of the woods behind the house. Her thoughts trailed off to different things, but she was distracted as something caught her attention. She'd spotted a faint blue glow out of the corner of her eye, coming from somewhere in the woods. The girl glanced at it, staring until it disappeared into the darkness, then began to wonder.  
  
"What was that?" She asked, as if waiting for the air to reply. "I've never seen anything like that before..." Her natural sense of curiosity was ringing a bell in her mind, begging her to go see. She tried to refuse its pleas for no more than a minute, then decided a look wouldn't be harmful and galloped off into the woods.   
  
Hushed voices met Li's ears as she stopped and crouched down in the dirt and leaves. She tried to hear their conversation, but although it was English she couldn't pick up any of the words said. The voices suddenly died and seemed to fade into the night. Li could still tell someone was nearby still, and stood to look around.  
  
A small gleam caught her eye, and bending down she found it to be a bizarre-looking ray gun of sorts; smooth and basic in design, but the buttons and the viewscreen weren't like anything she'd ever seen before. She picked up the small device, examining it closely, and pushed a couple of buttons on the side. When she glanced at the viewscreen, a small green bar had apparently been charged all the way to the top. Another press of a button, and a red beam shot out, desentigrating an entire tree in front of her. Li gasped and looked at the gun as if it were a stick of dynamite. Carefully, she bent over and placed it on the ground, then preceeded to back away slowly.  
  
Suddenly, she felt a tremendous explosion of pain burst in her head, just as if someone had hit her. The blow rendered her harmless and she fell down in a heap on the ground. A set of hands picked her up from off the ground just as darkness overcame her...  
  
~*~  
  
'Oh, my head...I hear voices...who's there...? Where am I...?'  
  
Li slowly slipped into consciousness and opened her eyes carefully, almost afraid of what she might see. The world around her was white for an instant, then returned to normal color before her eyes... she figured that was a side-effect from being unconscious. She found that she was laying on a bed of sorts -- a very uncomfortable bed, to say the least. People were busily working all around her. They all wore black shirts and pants, but different people had either blue, yellow or red-colored breast sections on their shirts. 'How bizarre,' Li thought groggily. 'This is like something out of a movie...'  
  
She now noticed that there were beds across from and on either sides of her, similar to the one she was laying on. There was one in the middle, however, with an odd arc-shaped attachement on top of it, giving it a slight resemblance to a tunnel. She seemed to be the only person laying down on these tables, which made her feel akward and out of place.  
  
When she sat up and tried to stand, a woman in a black and blue outfit and light blue, long sleeved doctor's jacket rushed over to her, her short auburn hair in slight disarray. "Hold on, you don't need to be on your feet yet," she declared, calmly helping Li back into a laying down position. "You have a mild concussion from being knocked unconscious." The woman laughed softly. "I suppose we should tell Worf to be a little gentler next time."  
  
Li cocked her eyebrow. "Um, I guess so...but I'm fine, actually..."  
  
"Just stay put a second, kiddo, you'll be alright." The woman turned her back to Li, trying to assemble something on a small rolling table. "Do you mind telling me your name?"  
  
"It's Li -- Li McCeahn. And if you'd like to let me go, I'd be--" she started to stand again as she spoke "--out of your way, Miss...ah..."  
  
The woman smiled. "Please, it's Dr. Crusher -- and no, you're not in my way...actually, you're right where I need you to be..." She pulled a small silver rod, about the length of her hand, with a strange looking needle on the top set at a 90-degree angle. Li paled and felt her eyes grow wide -- she'd always HATED shot-needles.  
  
"Y-y-you're not going t-to use that, are you?" She stuttered nervously. "C'mon, let's not be hasty, here, Doc..."  
  
"Relax," Dr. Crusher said with a chuckle. "This won't hurt, I promise."  
  
Li gulped. "It's not the pain I hate...it's just the needle part that makes me uneasy..."  
  
The doctor shook her head. "There's no need to worry...oh, darn, I have the wrong one. I'll be back in a minute, OK?" As the red-headed woman disappeared into an adjoining room Li found the opportunity to slide off of the table and sneak towards a door-shaped slab of metal. The "door" slid open as she approached; Li laughed once to herself and slipped out the door before Dr. Crusher noticed her disappearance. 


	2. It's Always the Wrong Door

Chapter two -- It's Always the Wrong Door...  
~*~  
  
Li sighed as she heard a hissing sound, reassuring her that the door had securely closed. She'd never imagined that one simple glow out in the middle of the woods could get her in THIS much trouble... "I guess curiosity CAN kill the cat," she muttered to herself. "But I guess I should be glad I'm not a cat, in that case..."  
  
The girl glanced around at her new surroundings -- a long, narrow hall with a number of doors scattered in sundry places along either sides of the hallway, all in similar appearance to the one she'd just stepped through. She shrugged and walked off to her right in search of anything that had nothing to do with needles.  
  
~*~  
  
It wasn't long before she'd come to the end (even though it had seemed impossible to do) of the long hallway, and found a small elevator that opened as she stepped forward. "This has SO got to be a dream..." Li told herself firmly. "You actually DId fall asleep. You only dreamed you got up to take that walk. This... IS... a... dream." She somehow managed to convince herself of this, while stepping into the elevator. The door slid shut behind her. "Now, how does one work this thing..."  
  
Li pressed a button in curiosity, causing the elevator to genly move upwards. "Whoa, I'm good!" Upon pressing another button, she stopped moving and the door opened again. "Short ride. Oh well..." the girl slowly stepped out into a hallway very similar to the one she'd just left, and began her exploration.  
  
Suddenly, a large crowd of people in the black uniforms came rushing past her, nearly knocking her over. Li squeaked in surprise and dodged most of the people that came towards her, trying not to be run over. The girl made her way to the nearest door and dashed in, plastering herself against the inside wall and gasping for air. 'This is a WEIRD dream,' she thought, calming down from her panic-attack.  
  
Incidentally, Li had stumbled into someone's room, or so it appeared...a small room at that. A small table sat in the middle of the room, covered with all sorts of machanical odds and ends; three or four chairs were scattered around, one close to the foot of a bed. Li let out a relieved sigh and sat down in the chair, glancing around the room a little more. A second bed was next to the first, though the bedcovers were fixed in a strange fashion. It almost looked as if someone had stuffed pillows underneath the covers in a vertical line...sort of like a body. The girl laughed at her misconceptions. There was no way that was a body, it was too---  
  
The "pillows" sighed quietly and shifted positions. Li's eyes bugged near out of their sockets with surprise, restraining a scream with all her might. Slowly, she stood and started backing towards the door, refusing to take her frightened eyes off of the bed for an instant. Unfortunately, she didn't see a stray piece of scrap metal on the floor, which lay directly in her path. The object slipped out from under her foot, which caused her to cry out and fall backwards...straight into the table.  
  
As Li fell to the ground (after knocking the table's contents on top of herself, including a large pot-like part that had ironically landed on her head and now covered her eyes), she cringed at the sound of a yell of surprise coming from the bed. 'I'm dead', she thought miserably, though remarkably dazed. 'I'm WORSE than dead -- this dream isn't much fun anymore...' But to her surprise, a few moments after the shout, she heard laughter coming from the same direction. Her face flushed a bright shade of red with embarassment, while the heat from under her collar gave the inside of the pot a humid feeling.  
  
Soft footfalls sounded, coming towards her -- or so she imagined. Trying to hear while having a pot on your head is difficult. Past the edge of the pot, Li could see bare feet stopping in front of her and the body attached to them squatting down to her level. Another laugh escaped the person as they lifted the pot off of the dazed girl's head. Her vision was still a bit blurry, so she couldn't quite focus her eyes on the person in front of her.  
  
The person laughed again, then spoke in a somewhat amused tone. "I'm almost afraid to ask, but who are you, and what are you doing here?"  
  
Li shook her head slowly and fought her nervous feelings for her voice. "I, uh...would you believe they threw me in?" She managed to glance at the person in front of her, though her head was spinning, and saw a teenage boy squatting in front of her, his short dark brown hair proving that he had indeed been sleeping. A merry grin was spread across his face, while his chocolate brown eyes twinkled with mischief and mirth. Li blushed a much darker shade of red and looked down at the mess around her, trying not to look at him again.  
  
"I honestly wouldn't," he admitted lightly. "But I'd still like to know who in their right mind would manage to get in here, especially in the middle of the night when people are ASLEEP." He emphasized the last word somewhat jokingly.  
  
Li let out a small groan. "I'm lost, that's who I am," she moaned. "I don't know where I am, or who the heck YOU are, for that matter." She stopped and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about the mess...I'll clean it up, I promise---"  
  
The boy stopped her in mid-sentence. "It's alright, don't worry about it." He hesitated and cocked an eyebrow at his captive. "...but you STILL haven't told me who you are."  
  
"I'm...ah...Li. Li McCeahn." She replied quietly. "Or, at least, I think I am."  
  
"You don't know who you are...?"  
  
Li was taken aback. "No, no, I AM Li McCeahn...but in this dream, I might be someone else and I don't know that I am...but none of this is real, and in a matter of seconds I'll wake up in my bed and wished that this WAS real." She sighed. "Dreams are so complicated..."  
  
The boy laughed again. "This IS real. And I'm as real as you." He extended his hand towards her, which she accepted and shook twice. "I'm Wesley Crusher. It's nice to meet you...even though I would've preferred to have met you standing up."  
  
"Oh sure, rub it it, why don't you?" Li grumbled. "Just because I'm not as coordinated as most people..."  
  
Wesley frowned. "I didn't mean it that way, and you know it."  
  
The girl shrugged and managed a small grin. "Hey, when the world is spinning, don't I have a right to misinterperet things...?" She watched the boy stand, and let him help her stand.  
  
"So, your name is...Li, right? Is that a nickname?" He asked.  
  
Li hesitated. "Yeah. So?"  
  
Wesley cocked his eyebrow again. "So...what's your real name, if I could be so curious?"  
  
"Ha, NO." She grimaced and shook her head. "I hate my name..."  
  
"Why? It can't be THAT bad," he said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.  
  
Li sighed before replying. "It's Elizabeth," she growled.  
  
Silence hung in the air for a moment before Wesley finally said something. "Why are you ashamed of it? Elizabeth's a nice name, compared to some I've heard."  
  
"Yeah, sure..." 


End file.
